1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a paper feeding apparatus transferring a document and sheets of printable paper into a multi-functional machine along the same transfer path and more specifically, to automatically feed all documents and sheets of paper into the multi-functional machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
A multi-functional machine has been improved to include functions of various office automated machines such as a printer printing data processed in a computer on a printable paper, a copying machine copying a document, and a facsimile machine transmitting data of documents to the other machine. Typically, in a multi-functional machine having the functions of such office automated machines, a document feeding unit for supplying documents and a paper feeding unit for supplying papers are separately and independently installed in a paper feeding apparatus of the multi-functional machine.
The multi-functional machine, however, becomes more complicated and more expensive to accommodate the installation of both a document feeding unit and a paper feeding unit in a paper feeding apparatus because the two feeding units having their own feeding paths in the paper feeding apparatus cause the paper feeding apparatus to be more complicated, and the complexity of the paper feeding apparatus requires the bigger and more expensive multi-functional machine.
Efforts to produce a less expensive and smaller multi-functional machine have been used to develop a paper feeding apparatus in which a document feeding unit supplying documents and a paper feeding unit supplying a printable paper share a common feeding path. This paper feeding apparatus requires a user to supply documents one by one when the documents are loaded in the document feeding unit of the paper feeding apparatus. I have noticed that it is inconvenient and time-consuming for the user to load a document in the document feeding unit and supply the documents one by one until all documents are fed into the multi-functional machine.